Transportation Mis/Information

I mentioned here last Wednesday the CHEN College Town shuttle, and saw this map of the three routes at one of its bus stops, when I walked down Warren Street to the College of Architecture and Design gallery of NJIT this Monday for the closing reception of the 2+2 exhibition. The dark spots top and bottom middle are bolts to the supporting post, joined by a faint line of corroded metal.

Nearby was an electronic sign with info about the next bus. I tried to get the "crawl" along the bottom, but missed all except the tail end.

I do not understand what the two numbers joined by an ampersand are supposed to represent. Two buses?

Notice anything wrong? "Kearny" is misspelled on this electronic sign, tho it is spelled right on the map shown above.
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I tried to get a sharper picture than the ambient-lite shot above, but when I snapped a flash foto, the letters and numbers turned out to be unreadable, perhaps caut in some mid-phase stage that was illegible. I took a second flash foto, to no better effect. Why?

When I returned to my car (the shuttles don't go near my house, and I'm not a student, tho I might like to take some computer and digital-fotografy courses from some college, perhaps ECC, which is free for old folks), I was about to open my driver's-side door when a metallic-silver Town Car (or similar) limo pulled up and the driver hailed me. Now, that's a change. He asked how to get to Florham Park. I was a little surprised, tho not at being asked for directions. I've been asked for directions a lot, including, among other places, Seneca Falls, NY, which I had never been to before (my father and I were visiting a town the family had lived in before my birth, in The Olden Days), and had arrived only about 20 minutes earlier; Ottawa, Ontario; and, I think, in then-Leningrad (present St. Petersburg) — in Russian! No, what I was startled at is that a limo driver with passenger would have no GPS and would be so lost as to be at Lock and Warren Streets in Downtown Newark when he was supposed to be driving to Florham Park.
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I had to think. I told him that he was in the wrong county (Essex, when he should have been in Morris), not just city, and that the only way I know to get to Florham Park is via South Orange Avenue. But how to get to SOA from Lock and Warren? There was a curving road feeding into Lock, which screwed up my perceptions, since the rectangular grid had been skewed by that curve. I thought a bit, then realized I had a three-county road atlas on my car's back seat, which I reached for. I showed him that SOA is designated 510 (an Essex County designation, I thought), and that it does indeed go directly to Florham Park. (I sometimes say that "South Orange Avenue goes everywhere", and, in a sense, it does, for being connected to the continental road network that connects most parts of the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and points south.) Alas, the print on the map was small and the liting bad, but I realized that MLK Boulevard was just four blocks away down Warren Street, and if he took a right there, he should intersect SOA in a half mile or so.

Only after he had driven off did I realize that MLK does not quite intersect SOA, but actually hits Springfield Avenue one block east of the start of SOA. I had, I think, told him there was a big courthouse at the right road. Afterward, I hoped he either realized that the back of the Old Essex County Courthouse was a courthouse, or that he would mistake the Hall of Records a block above as the courthouse I meant, so made the right turn at Springfield, whereupon he would see the 510 sign for SOA at most 200 feet off to the right. But at least he would know to ask the next person he asked, where South Orange Avenue is, if he drove beyond it.
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After that limo driver pulled away, I pulled out of my parking place straight ahead, ran into Central Avenue, made the left, then left again on First Street to go to the Bergen Street Pathmark — and realized that I could have told the driver to go that way, because just after the B St Pmk parking lot was SOA! But you might often drive places readily without realizing how to tell other people to follow the same route, and the driver didn't write anything down, so might not have remembered. Ah, well. I tried.
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When I got home and checked the .PDF Downtown Business District map that I have stored on my computer Desktop, as to what I had told the limo driver, I confirmed my error, but found another, this one in the internally illuminated map of the NJIT campus that appears in this next foto and which I compared to my .PDF map.

As you can see from this closer view zoomed in on via my graffics program, that map shows "Academy Street" for what is, according to my Business District map, Raymond Boulevard. I know that if you drive up Raymond Boulevard, you merge into Lock Street.

Note "Academy Street" at upper right (this map, designed to show people where they are relative to the streets around them, varies from ordinary map conventions; the top is northeast and bottom, southwest). The odd-shaped white blotch is the back of a flyer that some inconsiderate moron taped to the map but which disconnected at one side and folded over.

Here's that area as shown on the Business District map. Who's right, the makers of that map or the makers of the NJIT campus map?

I checked my other .PDF map, the Official City Map, to be sure that my understanding was based on the official street names.

So it would seem that somebody at NJIT goofed. As to whether the CHEN "Next Bus" electronic sign's mistake ("Kearney") is NJIT's, CHEN's, or someone else's, I do not know. But society has got to be more careful, and proofreading must be appreciated for the valuable skill it is. Proofreaders are not dispensable. Organizations and businesses should at least run things past a few different sets of eyes before committing texts to maps and signs. It's embarrassing  when a university, or group of universities, makes conspicuous mistakes.
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(My two .PDF maps used to be available for download from GoNewark.com, but seem no longer to be offered there. Why the heck not? Shouldn't the "new" version of anything also be "improved"?)

No Acorns, No Explanation

I have mentioned that my oak trees produced no acorns again this year. I wondered if I could get an explanation from the State agricultural extension service as to why this has happened a lot recently, but never before. So I searched for an email address and sent off this inquiry.

For, I believe, the third time in four years, my oak trees have produced NO ACORNS this year. The first occurrence of this phenomenon was 2008, when there was a widespread failure of oaks in the Eastern United States to produce acorns for the first time anyone could remember. The next year, however, acorns were back. But I don't think there were any last year and I have seen none in my neighborhood (the Vailsburg section of western Newark) this year. I have a number of oaks, including at least one that is about 70 feet tall. I'm worried about the squirrels. Do you know what is going on, and whether there is anything to be done about this? Please advise.

In a normal year, this closer view should have revealed at least some acorns. Not a one.

I received a reply, but it wasn't very helpful.

Most current research into “mast” production (tree seeds such as acorns, samara from maples, and various nuts) shows a correlation between environmental conditions and the volume of seed produced, but the specific causal agent (heat, water, light, etc.) has not been identified. Most likely seed production is influenced by a mix of these factors. During the past 10 years we have experience[d] extemes in temperature and water (i.e. droughts and flooding.) Trees do not always respond immediately to the weather but can lag 2 to 3 years behind an event. The most important point is that lack of acorn production is not a reliable indicator of overall tree health.

While acorns are an important food source for squirrels, squirrels are adaptable scavengers and will survive the winter.

Jan Zientek
Senior Program Coordinator
Agriculture and Resource Management
Cooperative Extension of Essex County

Last year, I broke up and tossed out some carrots for the squirrels, but they didn't seem to like them very well. They, or possums or raccoons (Vailsburg is semi-surburban and thus, nowadays, semi-wild for some hardy species that have moved back into areas they had evacuated decades ago), did eat some of the carrot chunks, but not all. Since Mr. (Ms.?) Zientek said the squirrels should survive this acornless winter, I won't try that again. Perhaps the squirrel population adjusts well to the availability of food, so doesn't produce many babies in lean years. I hope.

Nite Lacrosse at NJIT

This evening, when I drove to the closing reception of the latest NJIT art exhibition, I took a parking space a few blocks away because I didn't know if I'd find a spot closer. That vicinity is quite congested much of the day and into the nite, in that it's part of an area that has very much the feel of a residential-college town. There are students everywhere, walking to and from classes and extracurricular activities, waiting for the shuttle bus, and participating in sports practices. As I walked from where I parked on Lock Street near Warren, I saw some young men on the britely lited football/soccer field. They appeared, however, to be practicing neither football nor soccer, but the one sport we got from American Indians, lacrosse.

The field remains level while the sidewalk slopes downward. I wasn't sure I'd still be able to take a foto of the goal area until I got to that point. Fortunately, I could.

I wasn't quite certain of that, however, since I initially couldn't see clearly the implements they were using. When I saw a couple of guys standing still, I was able to capture the sticks in a foto to check later. The modern version of the lacrosse stick they were using looked too small. But I later checked the Internet for images of lacrosse sticks and, sure enuf, that's what they look like now. You can see here what lacrosse sticks used to look like, when I first became aware of the game. My brother Brian played it at Stevens (Institute of Technology, in Hoboken).

Wikipedia says that lacrosse is gaining in popularity. It's still not very popular, as team sports go, and especially spectator sports. But we've got lacrosse in Newark. We've got all kinds of things in Newark that people might not expect, including two beautiful green sports fields often lited at nite on the campuses of two adjoining colleges, NJIT and Rutgers.

First Church

This "Church Sunday" at Newark USA, I present some recent fotos of Newark's oldest church, a bit more than one block south of the Four Corners on the east side of the street. All Newarkers know the building, seen here with the former First National State Bank Building in the background.

The bank building, one of three in Newark designed by Cass Gilbert, the architect of the Woolworth Building in Lower Manhattan and the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, DC, is to be transformed into an Inter-Continental Hotel. (Wikipedia offers a different architect, Hirons and Dennison, and I cannot judge between the two sources. But the spare form of the structure doesn't seem to me to accord with the Hirons firm's Beaux-Arts and Art Deco inclinations. In any event, both architectural firms produced very distinguished works.)
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When I passed by the bank building on October 23rd on my way to the Open Doors art exhibit in Symphony Hall, there was little sign of actual construction. There was a barrier in front of the entrance, but since it was Sunday, I couldn't tell if there was any work already started but not in progress due to the weekend.
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The First Presbyterian Church's location and age show how long Newark has had a well-established street grid, which is part of Newark's historicity. Newark is the third-oldest major city in the United States, after only New York (c. 1625) and Boston (1630). The sign below speaks to key points in the history of the church, and city. Note the 1748 entry, the first commencement of what came to be known as Princeton University, after it moved from Newark. "Princeton" was founded in Elizabeth in 1746 but moved to Newark the next year, then remained in Newark nine years, until it moved to Princeton in 1756. Had it remained in Newark, and otherwise developed the same, its prestige would attach to Newark, not Princeton.

Not mentioned in the church's history given by the sign is that one of its ministers was the Rev. Aaron Burr, father to the notorious killer of Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, Jr., who was born in Newark. That's not a distinction we should cherish, but it is an undeniable part of Newark history. Nor should we glory in the theocratic origin of what became the First Presbyterian Church but started as a Puritan church.
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Old Newark has a webpage about the history of the church and its theocratic tendencies.

From "The WPA Guide to 1930's New Jersey":
"Whatever the origin of its name [a controversy not mentioned on this Old Newark webpage], Newark was unmistakably founded as a theocracy with the Puritan Congregational Church securely in control of village affairs. The church quickly erected a barrier around the religious freedom won by emigrating from New Haven. Church membership was a prerequisite to owning land, holding public office and voting. The church maintained such strict supervision over personal and public life that early Newark was more Puritan than much of New England itself."

I hadn't noticed before I passed by on October 23rd that there is a second church-like building on the grounds, smaller and lower, without a steeple. It seems to be the "Old First Presbyterian Church", and the taller building is more recent. Anyone interested in more detail as to the history of the two buildings might check the history at a different Old Newark webpage. There is a sign at the right side of the lawn that uses the term "Old", but I hadn't seen that as specifying the second building, just pointing out that the large building is old. The sign with key dates, which is to the left of the tall building, also uses the word "Old", which explains my confusion.

The sign to the right in the foto above, near the sidewalk, speaks to the church's importance to Newark's history. I do not find a website for the church as a going entity. Perhaps the congregation doesn't regard the Internet as an important recruitment tool. Or perhaps the current members of the congregation don't feel the need to recruit.

Open Doors '11, Part Last; Attendance; and NJIT Closing Reception on Monday

As I said last Friday, the last event I saw any part of in this year's Open Doors art weekend was the end of the Washington Park Arts Festival. I took only a few pictures of people packing up to leave.

But Newark artist Ing-On Vilbulbhan-Watts offered me some of her pix, many of which I show below. In this next foto, mine, you can see her, holding two padded containers in which, I think, were rolled-up copies of her peace poster as signed by lots of people at her table in the festival. I discussed that project here on July 28th.

Kareisha Avestel, a Barat Youth Initiative volunteer, took care of Ing's Peace Project during the Festival. (Remaining fotos today, including a number that show diverse people offering their thoughts on her topic, "What does 'Peace' mean to you?", are courtesy of Ing-On Vilbulbhan-Watts, who retains all rights. Thank you, Ing.) All fotos today relate to the parkfest, tho the text speaks to three distinct but interrelated topics.
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These first fotos show members of the Organización Carnavalesca de Santiago en New Jersey, a Dominican group that snapped enormously loud whips in the Arts Parade.

During the parade, the group wore intricate masks, but they started to come off once the group reached the park.

I don't know what the ebulliently colorful costumes were supposed to represent, but they certainly britened the day.

In the park, the Aztec Dance troupe, Kalpulli Huehuetlahtolli Danzantes, which merely marched in the portion of the parade I saw, actually danced. Ing-On saw the dancing in person. I saw it only thru her pictures.

Piece of the Puzzle. I wondered aloud here on November 14th why there aren't tens of thousands of suburbanites attending Open Doors in Downtown Newark each year. Gaetano thinks he may have a partial explanation, and offers some thoughts on a solution.

I have heard people over the years say that they are not afraid of coming to Downtown Newark but, if they are driving, they may be afraid that if they go off-route, there are "sections" if they get lost in that are NOT good.

I tend to agree there are "sections" of Newark that 'are' actually not that good due to gang activity! I would even be a bit hesitant to pass thru them.

I tell family and friends who drive to my place to make sure they don't turn off in wrong direction because I don't want them in areas where there is gang activity.

I think if we offered some transportation services (bus, etc.) from train stations at wealthy areas (Montclair, Livingston — wherever — and back again, more people might come to events in Newark.

Organizers of Downtown Newark events should offer such things as group discounts if 20 or 30 people from Montclair want to come to a Newark event, and bus them to and from.

We need to think of more ways that would encourage people to come to Newark, and once they are comfortable they just might continue coming on their own.

I replied:

I hadn't thought of that. But in regard to public transportation, that is NOT an issue, because Newark Penn and Broad Street Stations are both in safe areas, and the lite rail system from Broad Street Station goes to Newark Penn, which is a short walk to PruCenter. And the lite rail system also goes to NJPAC. Perhaps we need to publicize the way to get to NJPAC, NuMu, PruCenter, and the various galleries by safe public transportation. AND consider what mistakes people driving in might make that could get them in trouble — not that carjacking is a big problem here, so that if people merely pass thru questionable neighborhoods and their car doesn't break down, they don't risk much of anything. We've got to get people thinking about this.

There used to be a Loop bus that connected cultural venues Downtown, but it seems to have vanished some time ago. Maybe we need to reestablish that shuttle if it was indeed abolished — and why would it have been? How much did it cost? How much should we charge on a new Loop, for a whole day's off-and-back-on passage? This is the kind of thing we should all be discussing.

A couple of months ago, I spoke with someone who was active in organizing the Halsey Street Block Parties, which have also been seriously under-attended, about busing in people from senior residences, public schools, and our various colleges, who said that there had been discussions of such a thing, but inadequate financing sank that idea. There are shuttles that connect the various campuses and other locations. The College Town free shuttle organized by CHEN (the Council of Higher Education in Newark), even as far as Harrison and Kearny. Perhaps we need only make students of all these institutions aware of the stops close to the various venues, in publicity just before events, to get more college kids after classes or out of dorms and into the many free events open to them.

I don't know what kind of free or low-cost shuttles are available to senior residences or senior daytime activity centers. Again, it might just be a question of reaching people to alert them to events and how they can get to and from by public transportation right to the front door of their local community center.

Similarly, the Newark Public Schools might make buses available for students of appropriate age from various schools to appropriate art events. I don't know how much is already available, as against what we would have to create. Do Newark schoolchildren get an NJTransit bus pass for free rides? Only to and from school? Only during certain hours, to any destination? I don't know, but someone must. Plainly the Halsey Street Block Parties could easily accommodate busloads of kids and senior citizens. As to whether the various galleries are prepared to receive one or more busloads to their opening receptions, or at other times, I cannot say. But even if not every gallery would welcome hordes of kids arriving all at the same time, some might, and could work with the schools to stagger arrivals and departures to avoid overcrowding, and to permit a guided tour by gallery staff or school staff given an orientation prior to a bus trip. Wouldn't it be great if art educators in the Newark Public Schools, and in those of other municipalities outside City Limits, understood what a treasure Newark arts offer to impressionable kids. A field trip to an art gallery or tour of cWOW's murals or leisurely stroll thru an outdoor arts festival in Washington Park, or concert in Lincoln Park or PSE&G Plaza could make quite an impression on kids, and create affection for this city that could last the rest of their lives.

Closing Reception Monday. One show I was not able to get to during Open Doors is still open, but not for long. Here is the email invite:

Hello!

Please join us for the closing reception for our current exhibition: 2+2. It will be on Monday, November 28 from 5:30pm to 8:30pm and light refreshments will be served. below is a little information about the exhibit and the participating artists. The College of Architecture and Design Gallery is on NJIT campus in Newark, NJ. The address is 367 Martin Luther King Blvd. on the corner of MLK and Warren Street.

The premise of the exhibit was for each curator (David Smith and Matthew Gosser) to select artists who work closely with another artist. These artists could be siblings, lovers or studio-mates who influence each other's individual artwork in subtle or not-so-subtle ways. Two works of art from each artist were selected to be in the exhibit. The artists included in the exhibit are: Andrew Baron + Suzanne Kammin, Evonne M. Davis + Emma Wilcox, Peter Owen + Alison Owen and Andrew Demirjian + Dahlia Elsayed.

If you need any assistance, please call 973-596-3080.

Sincerely,
Matthew Gosser
Director, CoAD Gallery

The hours are a little earlier than usual for NJIT receptions, probably because, for some reason, this one is on a Monday rather than Friday.

In any case, I will probably be able to see the last remaining exhibition from this year's Open Doors event, this coming Monday.

Boycotted Robeson Center Panel on 'Queer Newark'

Today's discussion is mainly for adults, but also for teenagers who are already sexual in their thinking.

Fotos today are from the little Gay Pride march up Halsey Street into a litely attended gay (and lesbian) festival in Washington Park in late June 2010. I was a little late arriving (what else is new?), so the first few fotos show marchers from the back. I am not protecting their identity, and they were marching openly. I didn't get to this year's event — there's only one of me, and I can't get to every event in the busy New Newark — so don't know if it grew any.

Madness has seized control of the Robeson Center at Rutgers-Newark. Its staff permitted a one-day conference to be held on its premises that was called, insanely, "Queer Newark". Let me make clear, for people who just don't know, or have been misled by the propaganda of bizarre gay and lesbian self-despisers, that the word "queer" is the exact equivalent of "nigger". It is profoundly and permanently offensive to the great preponderance of people for whom it is intended. It cannot be "rehabilitated" or "reclaimed", but will always be absolutely unacceptable in polite company. It must NEVER be used by straight people — EVER. If Rutgers-Newark would not smile upon a symposium titled "Nigger Newark", it should never have approved of even a one-day program called "Queer Newark".

Moreover, how do you compensate for long-term, indeed historic refusal to recognize the contributions of gay or lesbian Newarkers, as the materials for the "Queer Newark" program spoke of doing, by means of a ONE-DAY program?

Here is the text put online about this program by Newark Pulse:

Date: Saturday, November 12, 2011

Time: 9am-5pm

Location: Paul Robeson Center - Rutgers - Rm 231

Cost: Free

Rutgers-Newark partnered with community leaders to present "Queer Newark: Our Voices, Our Histories," a free, full-day, oral history conference examining gay life in Newark. It will be followed by an evening of entertainment at The Coffee Cave from 6-9 p.m. Newark Mayor Cory Booker will welcome participants and guests.

"The city of Newark, New Jersey has a fascinating and well-documented history. There are studies of its rich cultural, musical, and literary legacy, its educational system, political life, religious life, immigrant roots, and history of racial conflict," said Prof. Beryl Satter of the Federated Department of History at Rutgers-Newark and conference co-chair, "yet, there is one group whose undeniable contribution to the city’s life has rarely been the subject of historical or academic study -- Newark’s LGBT community. The Queer Newark conference is a way to rectify this omission."

This is the front of the march. Two white people, both female? Why is that? Do white gay men have to sit in the back of the bus, in their own march, in Newark?

Three generations of LGBT Newarkers will be on hand to reflect on their lives as LGBT people in the city of Newark. Panelists will discuss everything from childhood experiences to religion and spirituality during the moderated discussions. Community members, historians and scholars of Newark history and LGBT history and studies are encouraged to attend.

Is that an unusually broad-shouldered woman? Or not? If not, why is he wearing women's clothes? Perhaps a white patch of fabric on her hip makes this actual woman look like a "drag queen", in visually narrowing her hips. I am among the many gay men who have never had the problem of being gender-nonspecific. My proportions, chest hair, facial hair, etc., have always plainly marked me out a man. I feel very sorry for gay men who have been tempted to conceal their manhood because they could. Very sad — but nonetheless contemptible. Other people may not see you naked, but you do, and you know what you are. Be what you are!

According to Darnell L. Moore, former chair of the City of Newark’s LGBTQ Advisory Commission and conference co-chair, "This conference will be the beginning of a larger, ongoing project that we hope will foster an intergenerational discussion of LGBT life in Newark. It will also be the foundation of an archive on LGBT Newark that can be used by historians and by future generations. This is a major first step towards preserving the history of LGBT Newark and bringing these voices and experiences into Newark’s broader communal history."

More Info: http://queer.newark.rutgers.edu.

The website actually uses the insane term "LGBTQ" — for Lesbian [which must always appear before "Gay", because gay men are second-class citizens in their own "community", even tho they constitute the great majority of all members], Gay, 'Bisexual' [a mythical, nonexistent creature], 'Transgender' [another mythic, nonexistent creature], and 'Questioning' [people so moronically un-self-aware that they don't know what the heck they are]. Relatively few gay people, be they teenagers or grownups, do not know full well that they are gay, but all the organizations adjust around the few, maladjusted losers who at least pretend not to know what they are. My friend and fellow gay militant, John Lauritsen, has used the term "synthetic insanity", which refers to people who PRETEND to an insane stance they do not in fact believe but cleave to because it is politic in this demented age to do so. They pretend to think they are women, when they are actually men and know full well they are men, because society has been persuaded that it is biologically possible for someone to be other than what one's genes mandate. It is not.

There is in fact no such thing as an "LBGT...etc." community. The different constituent groups of that preposterous, synthetic "community" have nothing to do with each other. Gay men do not crave being surrounded by lesbians, but do not generally feel comfortable saying aloud that they don't want anything to do with lesbians, but want to be alone with men. Lesbians do not want to be surrounded by gay men. Fortunately for them, given the bizarre double standard that straight society has, regarding men's rights and women's prerogatives, lesbians generally do not hesitate to say they want men to leave them alone. No gay man or lesbian wants anything to do with "bisexuals", but hold them in contempt. And all well-adjusted gay men are puzzled by "transsexuals", who pretend to believe that they are not what biology, and their eyes and hands, tell them very plainly they absolutely and unequivocally are. Sometimes "transgendered" people make themselves entertaining in their flamboyant make-believe, but they are basically seen by everyone on Earth as tragic lunatics. Madness is not a form of happiness. Quite the contrary, the insane are almost uniformly miserable, and we do them no favor in pretending to believe that they are sane but the world is mad.

People in straight society have been so misled about the entire issue of homosexuality and/or lesbianism that they tend to believe whatever they are told by "LGBT[Q...I...you-name-it]" organizations. Little do they know that such organizations are, for the most part, headed by self-despising losers who were raised to be heterosexual and have NEVER been able to overcome that early training. As each generation of would-be activists, who start out with good sense enuf to be indignant at the way they have been treated, enters those organizations, they accept what they were told, first by straight society, then by the insane organizations that have themselves been unable to repudiate that heterosexual training. Only later, by years, do they grow beyond such nonsense, and realize that the things they were required by those organizations to say, are nonsense, then leave those organizations of sad, psychologically deformed losers.

Still, they don't denounce the b.s. that the organizations they belonged to inflicted upon society, to correct the record. Rather, they just leave those maladjusted, ridiculous organizations. Alas, that leaves the organizations always under the control of maladjusted losers, and always spouting antihomosexual b.s.

These beautiful young men, carrying between them a banner with the term I offered in 1970, are exactly the kind of thing that makes me very proud to be homosexual. They are stunning, and proud to proclaim to the world that they are gay. Alas, there are in Newark no gay bars, coffeehouses, or ANYthing in which gay men might meet each other to "hook up" and perhaps even fall in love. Yes, men do fall in love with each other. Powerfully, manfully. But even if we don't fall in love, we sure do like to 'get busy', and make each other physically, if not also emotionally, happy. Why can't we state that plainly, in a society in which sexual crudity of all kinds is all over the tube? You can't tune into a single CBS sitcom, or some NBC sitcoms, without being hit in the face by heterosexual obscenity — all the while straight society pretends to be pure, and glowing, and noble, not ever hot for sex for the sake of sex. Truth be told, a lot of straight men would love to have, with women, the fast-and-loose, sex-for-the-sake-of-sex (which is good enuf) twos, threes, fours and mores, and when-it's-over-let-it-go—easy,-without-recriminations attitude of casual gay sex. Gay men have no problem with sex as recreation, which may lie behind the vicious denunciation of homosexuality by so many straight men, because they are ENVIOUS of gay men's not demanding more than sexual reciprocity in order to give sex on demand.

To attend a conference called "Queer [Anything]" would 'confer' legitimacy upon the use of that despicable term, and THAT, I will not do, so I refused to attend.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, gay men had many discussions, in many forums, about which terms were acceptable, and which unacceptable, and why. In addition to "homosexual", "gay", and "lesbian", there were other terms for gay men, lesbian women, and businesses, publications, organizations, and such intended for such audiences, some of which were then and are now generally regarded as disparaging ("fag", "faggot", "fruit"; "dyke", "bulldyke", "lez"; etc.). There was NO agreement over whether "homosexual" could apply to both men and women, nor whether terms like "homophile" (for organizations and publications) were self-assertive or self-denying.

In time, a general agreement, tho not unanimous consensus, emerged. "Gay" is OK; "lesbian", for women, is also OK; "homosexual" has a medical sound to it, but is not offensive. But terms like "fag", "faggot", "fruit", "nancy boy", "poof[ter]", "fem", "dyke", "bulldyke", "lez", "drag queen", "tranny" (which is, in any case, ambiguous; does it refer to "transvestites", people, even heterosexuals, who dress in the clothing of the opposite sex, or "transgendered" people, lunatics who wish they were the sex they're not?) — and "queer" — were irredeemably offensive. There is no such thing as a "gay woman", any more than there is such a thing as a "lesbian man". Nor is there anything bizarre ("queer" in its original meaning) about homosexuality, which is extremely commonplace, much more than, for instance, lefthandedness. Dictionary.com defines "queer" thus:

1. strange or odd from a conventional viewpoint; unusually different; singular: a queer notion of justice.
2. of a questionable nature or character; suspicious; shady: Something queer about the language of the prospectus kept investors away.
3. not feeling physically right or well; giddy, faint, or qualmish: to feel queer.
4. mentally unbalanced or deranged.
5. Slang: Disparaging and Offensive.

a. homosexual.
b. effeminate; unmanly.

If Dictionary.com knows that the use of the term "queer" for homosexuals is "Disparaging and Offensive", why doesn't the Robeson Center of Rutgers-Newark? Definitions 2 and 4 are also offensive, so why on Earth would anyone rush to EMBRACE "queer" for themselves?

Lesbians have NEVER been called "queer" by straight society. The embrace of the term "queer" for themselves by some lesbians is grotesque in every way.

If reality controlled, I would have to be recognized as the single most important gay figure in Newark, not just now but in this city's entire history, for having put forward the term "Gay Pride" as it is now used, in the committee that organized the first, annual gay (and, alas, lesbian) march commemorating Stonewall — which was a gay MEN's bar of which I had been a regular customer, not  a "gay and lesbian" bar as it has now been recast. Homosexuality had, before then, been regarded as profoundly shameful, "the Love that dare not speak its name". The power of the term "Gay Pride", thus, was in completely reversing the assumption, from shame to pride.

"Gay Pride" moved the goalpost, in a good way: closer to the great preponderance of people, who understand the importance of self-respect, and who respect themselves, so expect other people to respect themselves. "Pride" is one of various terms for "self-respect", or "self-esteem", a feeling that educators in recent decades — and most especially since 1970, when I put forward "Gay Pride" — have made plain to society at large is quintessential to a person's healthy functioning and future success.

"Gay PRIDE" went beyond defending against assertions that gay men should be ashamed of themselves. It asserted that we are entitled to feel good about ourselves and what makes us, us. It tells gay men that homosexuality is ennobling, and that it's a very good thing not just for ourselves but also for society that some men see other men not as dangerous competitors we must vanquish, no matter how much harm we might do to others in order to vanquish them, but primarily as a source of esthetic, emotional, and physical pleasure.

The term "Gay Pride" has, thus, been transformative in a way that the title for the weekend of events we were organizing among host-city organizations and wanted to unite under a single title, might NOT have been if we had gone with the original thought, "Gay Power Weekend". My thinking was that "power" is something that depends upon numbers and outside forces, but "pride" is something that depends upon nothing but yourself, internally. You could be in a gay community of a million in a great metropolis like the NY Tristate Metropolitan Area but still not be confident in yourself nor proud in your feelings about men.

Conversely, however, you could be proud of your nature, and your feelings for men, in total isolation from other gay men, hundreds or even thousands of miles from the nearest gay bar or community center. So gay "pride" was a much better term for a movement intended (remember, it was 1970, and we were inventing all of this) to make gay men feel good about themselves, than gay "power", which for most gay men, all around the Earth, would then, and still, to this day, be unattainable. Despite the nonexistence in most places of even the tiniest shred of gay "power" in their locality, every single gay man, in India, Cameroon, South Africa, China, Brazil, and every other place where there is not so much as a single gay bar or organization, could feel pride in their feelings for men if they understood themselves and how ennobling those feelings can be in a man's life.

Mind you, not every feeling that some people attempt to force upon gay men, or seduce them into, is wholesome, and gay men are often pushed to embrace insane and ugly attitudes, such as sado-masochism. Gay Pride is at once an antidote to the ugly, vicious, and insane misrepresentations of homosexuality that straight society's antigay propagandists promote, and to perverted, sado-masochistic attitudes that sexual degenerates proselytize for gay men to embrace — but which we must refuse.

I reject the entire idea of "loving yourself", which is sometimes used as justification for autoerotic self-absorption, as lunacy. No, love comes from one person and attaches to another, not himself. Esteem yourself, respect yourself, yes, to be sure. But "love" yourself? That's freaky.

Newark is large enuf a city to, in most places on Earth, be a center of homosexual in-migration. But Newark is also the second city of the greatest city of the entire world, and largest city of the United States, New York. Newark and Jersey City, in NJ, cannot compete with Manhattan for in-migration of gay men — unless we find something unique by which to distinguish gay life, present or future, here.

In speaking of preferences as to terminology, I am not just talking here of my own viewpoint, without evidence as to how other men feel. I long ago placed upon my "Mr. Gay Pride" website a poll of visitors, which currently shows this result:

If you add up the votes that favor the term "gay", you will find that they amount to 74% of responses.

If importance to changed perceptions of homosexuality were the criterion, I should always be among the first people ever thought of when gay groups think of a Grand Marshal for a "Gay Pride" Parade — which wouldn't even have that name were it not for me. But in fact I have never been invited to be Grand Marshal of ANY "Gay Pride" Parade. Nor, however, would I consent to lead off a heterosexually organized march that repudiated the very concept of Gay Pride, in insisting that men and women "belong together". No thank you. I reject the idea that men and women "belong together" — not in bed, and most assuredly not in a march for the right NOT to be compelled to go to bed together.

I'm used to being overlooked, ignored, and actively disregarded when other gay people (or fictitious "LGBTQ...I...", etc. people) are honored. You see, I am a gay MAN, and refuse to identify with nor bolster lesbians, with whom I do not in any way nor to any degree identify. Oddly, that seems to have annoyed a lot of lesbians, even those who insist upon women-only organizations and events. All-female is fine; all-male, a crime against humanity!

I also actively object to the idea that gay men are not entitled to a unique identity but must always subsume their identity into an all-gender (i.e., non-gender: castrated, emasculated (for gay men) or de-feminized (for lesbian women)) identity. Biology — that is, actual science — permits of only two genders, or sexes: male, marked by an XY chromosomal configuration, and female, marked by an XX chromosomal configuration. Anything and everything else is ANTI-scientific nonsense that society needs actively to suppress, like Creationism and its assertion that people and dinosaurs roamed the Earth at the same time.

Kids were playing in another area of Washington Park — which is rather a small park, as, for instance, against NY's Central Park; it is rather more like NY's Madison Square or Bryant Park in size — at the same time as the Gay Pride Festival was running. Newark is very adult about these things, and doesn't worry that gay people are out to molest children, a favorite, wicked slander from the Radical Right.

There are no chromosomal "mistakes". That is a kindly, scientific way to address the crazy idea that God — 100% infallible  God! — somehow "made a mistake" and put a woman into the body of a man, or the other way around. Kindhearted people have wanted to accord logical and scientific credibility to the notion that "transgendered" people could indeed exist — but on the basis of what scientific theory?

Why is there this big portion of Washington Park without grass? It cannot be because events are held there, so the grass would be beaten down. Grass is one of nature's most resilient plants, and thrives on beat-downs you might think would kill it.

Why are so many people desperate to accommodate insane renunciation of biology? Society does no favor to lunatics by pretending to believe they are right in their insane beliefs — be it that a modern-day, 6'7" man really is  Napoleon Bonaparte, or that a confused, self-despising 20-year-old man is really a woman. Yes, all of society, all of science, reason, and reality is wrong, but YOU who say God (who, by definition, is incapable of error) made a mistake, are right. NO! Stop this nonsense. Society must tell lunatics that they are out of their mind, and need to let go of their insane delusions and embrace reality.

No one really believes that "Chaz" Bono is a man. Not one single person on Earth really believes that a person who has no male sexual organs, but every single cell in whose body bears the XX chromosomal configuration, is a man. Not one single person on Earth. So why are we endlessly assailed by lies from media that Chastity Bono, after a double mastectomy and being pumped full of male hormones, is a man, always referred to as "he"? If you dare to challenge that assertion on the Internet, your comment is likely to be deleted as tho "hate speech" — for simply telling the biological truth that every single person whose chromosomal configuration is XX is beyond contention FEmale. Are all those women who had double mastectomies because of breast cancer now men? No, they are not, and Chastity Bono is not, no matter what she may call herself.

Chastity Bono is "collateral damage" to a Castration Conspiracy designed to destroy gay men surgically because society refuses to accept the masculinity of men oriented to men, even tho there is nothing more masculine than sex between men, in which there is no woman present. Gay men do NOT regard themselves as a kind of woman, but fully as men. WE don't have pink shower curtains, with pantyhose drying over the shower bar; nor duvets nor dust ruffles nor a dozen pillows on the bed. Quite the contrary, we have to question the masculinity of heterosexual "men" who consent to be emasculated by super-feminine decorating. Nor should anyone else ever think gay men less than men, but always as ONLY men. In the same way, no one should ever think of lesbians as anything BUT women. (That is not to suggest that I speak for women, but only that I imagine that lesbians resent the suggestion that they are somehow less than women.)

In promoting the idea that lesbians are men born in the wrong body, Ms. Bono is an enemy  of lesbians, for telling the world that lesbianism is fake heterosexuality and gender confusion. She is also a deadly enemy of gay men, in telling the world that homosexuals would be much happier and better off if they would just let the doctors chop off their genitals and pump them full of female hormones.

This was one of the PERVERTED parts of the Washington Park 'gay' festival, a table at which dozens of CONDOMS were offered, but which table was staffed by a woman, probably lesbian. Lesbians NEVER need a condom. Never. So why would anyone put a LESBIAN in charge of a table filled with condoms? Only MEN are imposed upon to, or even can, use condoms, so putting a LESBIAN in charge of a table loaded down with CONDOMS is truly grotesque. Such grotesquerie is what happens when gay is equated to lesbian, such that lesbians intrude upon gay men's sexual privacy. Disgusting. Truly, truly MONUMENTALLY revolting.

I received, this week, an email from a gay writer in NYC, Perry Brass, that purported to list the ten most important gay activists of all time. I was not on that list. That is, alas, same-old, same-old. Mind you, I did NOT, for the most part, participate in typical "activist" actions, demonstrations and sit-ins. But I did help organize the first annual march of the type now generally termed — because of me — "Gay Pride" parades, and did march (an activist activity, in anyone's judgment) in at least two of the first three such parades in NYC.

It's more than a little annoying when even straight allies in defending gay rights send women to gay events. Alas, since gay men refuse to tell lesbians to get their own events, and gay men will stand on their own, always, straight organizations cannot know how offensive it is to gay men to be treated as lesbians.

More to the point, my linguistic activism, "Gay Pride", has affected the perceptions of at very least a BILLION people in the First World, and possibly as many as, or even more than, THREE BILLION people all around the world. What other person on that list has had nearly that impact? No one.

Wide view, from the far side of Washington Street outside the Newark Museum, of the setup for the gay festival in Washington Park.

People who have seen historic footage of the first few marches may have seen me there, near the front. I think that in the first or second march I was wearing a white, long-sleeved shirt, of ("pirate") puffy sort, and may also have been wearing a floppy straw hat against the sun. Such fotos or videos as I have seen do not, alas, record me in verbal clashes with pushy lesbians who felt that gay men had no right to be anywhere near the front of the march that gay men organized.

It is not, mainly, my purpose here to complain about the craziness of New York City "gay" marches, community centers, or anything else — nor of the Gay Men's Chorus's always having a female soloist, because all GMC concerts must be heterosexual in form — so much as to encourage gay men in Newark to REFUSE to let lesbians impose upon them in any way, but always to be proud to be MEN attracted to and, if we are lucky, in love with MEN who love them.

I do not resent lesbians' being lesbians, but only their insisting that gay men identify with lesbians and let them dominate The Movement. Gay men and lesbians have nothing  intrinsically in common. Gay men must stop letting outsiders define them, but must refuse pressure to identify with the opposite sex and give up their masculine purity to accommodate people who are nothing like them. My defense of gay men's right to an all-male identity is of necessity also a defense of lesbians' right to an all-female identity. Why don't lesbians see that?

This statue of Seth Boyden, a Newark-based inventor whom Thomas Edison (whose first laboratory was in Newark) called the greatest American inventor, stands in the incomprehensibly barren area of Washington Park. There should be grass there as much as anywhere else in the Park.

I do not expect Newark to have a major parade on Broad Street each "Gay Pride" Day, even tho the term as it is now used does derive from a current Newarker (altho I lived in Manhattan when I put the term forward). I reject the idea that gay men have some special bond to lesbian women, so must always organize with and march with them. How supremely bizarre this notion is, that men and women must march together to assert the right not to be pushed at each other!
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Rather, I hope that gay men in Newark will learn to think of themselves before they think of anyone else, and see themselves as the norm before they EVER compare themselves to anyone else. We must be the men we are. Love the men we love. Crave the men we crave. And never apologize to anyone for being who we are.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I rarely discuss gay issues, largely because there is almost nothing for gay men in Newark (otherwise I would include gay items regularly, since gay events are part of the world I report on) but also because my capsule profile at top right always includes mention that I put forward the term "Gay Pride" as it is now used. I would, however, be seriously remiss in not objecting to antihomosexual bigotry — albeit unintentional — by a major Newark institution, such as the Robeson Center of Rutgers-Newark. And now, ladies and gentlemen — or should I say "gentlemen and ladies", since some women object to "ladies first", and men are far more important to me and all other gay men than are women? — I will step down from my soapbox, hoping that straight people among my readers will have learned something that no one else will tell them.